34th Lynne Marchiando Regatta

Today's racing honors the memory of Lynne Marchiando who was an outstanding varsity sailor for 3 of her 4 years at MIT. Sixteen teams relished in the gnarly conditions on the recently thawed Charles River. With gusts upwards of 40 the FJ fleet used storm jibs and the Fireflies went with reefed mainsails. A slight postponement was required during the middle of the day as things got a bit wild and crazy. However, a bit of abatement let things get rolling again and 51 races were completed. The Prep flag was used and it worked very well as audible signals were hardly recognizable with the sound of breeze, waves, and luffing.

It takes many volunteers to pull off a regatta of this caliber. John Moulthrop, Alex Cooke, Tomas Hornos, and John Tagliamonte were umpiring, hearing protests, and fishing bodies from the river. MIT undergrads Megan McKnelly, Stas Stanislav, Paige Omura, Greta Farrell, and Joe Paggi took turns scoring and doing finish line duty. Stew Craig, Joe Zambella, Wally Corwin, and Mark deShong kept the repairs going and made sure everything kept flowing. Varsity Coach Matt Lindblad and Sailing Master Franny Charles shared RC duty.

More breeze was on tap on Sunday at the Marchiando. 69 races were completed to finish the round robin in a 12-22 knot westerly. Thanks to umpires John Moulthrop, Tomas Hornos, and Alex Cooke. Thanks to MIT undergrad volunteers Paige Omura, Pavlina Karafillis, and Lisa Sukhavev-Chuyan and to the dockstaff Joe Zambella, Wally Corwin, and Mark deShong. Fran Charles ran all of the races from the start boat.

Congrats to Yale University on the win.